Yap or Bust?

When considering change, sometimes it helps to look at big, dramatic change. Like halfway across the planet thousands of miles from everything kind of change.

Before deciding to come to Aspen, I applied to a 1-year Peace Corps program on an island in Micronesia called Yap.

I didn't get the gig. If I had, this blog would undoubtedly be written from there. As the saying goes, "you can't get there from here" but there are stops along the path to your final destination, and considering a move to Yap helped immensely.

The local populatin of Yap isn't that different from Aspen, although Aspen has much larger tourism populace. Both are fairly distant from large cities, though 917 miles across an ocean from Yap to the Philippines (or a mere 529 miles to Guam) is a lot more daunting than driving 3 1/2 hours (159 miles) across the Continental Divide.

So, no question that going to Yap is a lot bigger "stretch" than coming to Aspen. To paraphrase the Oscar Wilde quote I posted earlier – "A mind stretched by considering new experiences can more easily accomodate less dramatic changes."